A avut protoromâna „foneme speciale”?
Did Proto-Romanian have "special phonemes"?

Summary/Abstract: The paper reviews the various situations, which allow to postulate that Proto-Romanian did have a specific phoneme, a laryngeal or, perhaps, a velar spirant, conventionally noted as *X. The glossary and the case studies preceding it suggest that there are strong arguments supporting the reconstruction of such a phoneme; vatră, fărâmă, ceafă and buf are analyzed in more detail, but the list is a lot longer. The paper also discusses the situation of Proto-Slavic ch [χ], which – in initial position at least – also witnesses the existence of a ‘special phoneme’ in pre-expansion Slavic. The relationship between the Romanian and the Slavic forms should be understood in the light of old north Thracian and Proto-Romanian relations with Proto-Slavic. These were approached in other works and studies.

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